Knidos - Datca - TURKEY |
KNIDOS, DATCA - TURKEY
Knidos or Cnidus was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, part
of the Dorian Hexapolis and situated on the Datça peninsula,
which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus or Gulf
of Gökova.
The debate about it being an island or cape is caused by the
fact that in ancient times it was connected to the mainland
by a causeway and bridge. Today the connection is formed by
a narrow sandy isthmus. By means of the causeway the channel
between island and mainland was formed into two harbours, of
which the larger, or southern, was further enclosed by two
strongly-built moles that are still in good part entire.
The extreme length of the city was little less than a mile,
and the whole intramural area is still thickly strewn with
architectural remains. The walls, both of the island and on
the mainland, can be traced throughout their whole circuit;
and in many places, especially round the acropolis, at the
northeast corner of the city, they are remarkably perfect.
The first Western knowledge of the site was due to the
mission of the Dilettante Society in 1812, and the
excavations executed by C. T. Newton in 1857-1858.
The agora, the theatre, an odeum, a temple of Dionysus, a
temple of the Muses, a temple of Aphrodite and a great
number of minor buildings have been identified, and the
general plan of the city has been very clearly made out. The
most famous statue by Praxiteles, the Aphrodite of Knidos,
was made for Cnidus. It has perished, but late copies exist,
of which the most faithful is in the Vatican Museums. In a
temple enclosure Newton discovered a fine seated statue of
Demeter, which he sent back to the British Museum, and about
three miles south-east of the city he came upon the ruins of
a splendid tomb, and a colossal figure of a lion carved out
of one block of Pentelic marble, ten feet in length and six
in height, which has been supposed to commemorate the great
naval victory, the Battle of Cnidus in which Conon defeated
the Lacedaemonians in 394 BC. Cnidus was a city of high
antiquity and as a Hellenic city probably of Lacedaemonian
colonization. Along with Halicarnassus (present day Bodrum,
Turkey) and Kos, and the Rhodian cities of Lindos, Kamiros
and Ialyssos it formed the Dorian Hexapolis, which held its
confederate assemblies on the Triopian headland, and there
celebrated games in honour of Apollo, Poseidon and the
nymphs.
Knidos_2The city was at first governed by an oligarchic
senate, composed of around sixty members, and presided over
by a magistrate; but, though it is proved by inscriptions
that the old names continued to a very late period, the
constitution underwent a popular transformation. The
situation of the city was favourable for commerce, and the
Knidians acquired considerable wealth, and were able to
colonize the island of Lipara, and founded a city on Corcyra
Nigra in the Adriatic. They ultimately submitted to Cyrus,
and from the battle of Eurymedon to the latter part of the
Peloponnesian War they were subject to Athens.
In their expansion into the region, the Romans easily
obtained the allegiance of Knidians, and rewarded them for
help given against Antiochus by leaving them the freedom of
their city. During the Byzantine period there must still
have been a considerable population: for the ruins contain a
large number of buildings belonging to the Byzantine style,
and Christian sepulchres are common in the neighbourhood.
Eudoxus, the astronomer, Ctesias, the writer on Persian
history, and Sostratus, the builder of the celebrated Pharos
at Alexandria, are the most remarkable of the Knidians
mentioned in the history. |
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